Step One—Acquire the image with a scanner or digital camera
Recommended Specifications
Flatbed Scanner
| File Format to start with | Prof. Pub. | Video | Poster | Slides | Newsletter | PowerPoint Presentation (not poster/slide) | WWW |
| TIFF | P | P | P | P | P | P | P |
| JPG | | | | | | P | P |
Creating a TIFF file will produce the quality needed for all likely uses. A native JPEG file's quality cannot be improved for uses beyond most computer display applications like a PowerPoint presentation or website.
Use 300 ppi for major publications and no less than 150 ppi for other printing needs. If your scanning software asks you for size or dimension, put in the size at which you would like to print the image. If you are scanning a 4"x5" item and you would like to print it at 8x10, put 8x10 in the size field. If you select "same as original," the file will be made to produce duplicate 4"x5" prints.
If you are scanning a 35mm slide, set the size to what you would like it to be for future use, 8x10 for example, not "same as original."
Digital Camera
| File Format to start with | Prof. Pub. | Poster | Slides | Newsletter | PowerPoint | WWW |
| TIFF | Hi/ 1600x1200 | Hi/ 1600x1200 | Hi/ 1600x1200 | Hi/ 1600x1200 | Hi/ 640x480 | Hi/ 640x480 |
| JPG | Fine/ 1600x1200 | Fine/ 1600x1200 | Fine/ 1600x1200 | Fine/ 1600x1200 | Normal/ 640x480 | Basic/ 640x480 |
There is a lot of variety in this relatively new technology. Basically, the camera will produce an uncompressed file (TIFF) for the highest quality the camera can record. All other quality settings save files as JPEG files. There are exceptions, of course; some lower resolution cameras do not produce any TIFF files and JPEG files are as good as they get.
There are two choices...
On many models you can choose the quality setting and the image size.
Quality settings:
Hi (TIFF), Fine (JPG), Normal (JPG), and Basic (JPG)
Image Sizes:
Full (2048x1530 pixels) will produce a decent publication-quality 6" x 8" photo
or a 10" x 13" photo for a poster.
UXGA (1600x1200) will produce a 5" x 6" publication print or an 8" x 11" poster image.
SXGA (1280x960) will produce a 4" x 5" print for publication or a poster image 6.5" x 8.5"
VGA (640x480) for 2" x 2.5" publication print or a 3" x 4" poster image. This will also produce a full-screen image on a basic 640x480 computer display.
Move on to Step 2